1 Razor

Red Sonja (1985)

  • Title: Red Sonja (1985)
  • IMDb: link

Throwback Tuesday takes us back to the Hyborian Age and one of the worst sword and sorcery movies to come out of a pretty crappy genre. 1985’s Red Sonja stars model Brigitte Nielsen in her acting debut the sword-wielding She-Devil with a Sword who gained prominence in comics in the 1970s. Although Arnold Schwarzenegger gets top billing here, he’s a minor character who is obviously Conan but not Conan (as the film didn’t have the rights to use the character). Nielsen, with no real acting experience, is far from the worst thing about the film which is campy without being fun and ultimately a dreadful bore that makes Conan: The Destroyer look like Citizen Kane.

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Warhunt

  • Title: Warhunt
  • IMDb: link

Set in Germany towards the end of 1945, Sergeant Brewer (Robert Knepper) and his men are sent behind enemy lines (note: we never see enemy lines in this movie) to find a crashed Allied plane with vital information Major Johnson (Mickey Rourke) doesn’t want falling into Axis hands. What they find are witches (Lou Stassen and Anna Paliga) in the Black Forest who torment and kill the soldiers, just as they do to all warriors who enter their realm to feed their own power.

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Black Site

  • Title: Black Site
  • IMDb: link

Have you ever watched a movie where your primary reaction is feeling sorry for everyone involved in the project? I know actors need to work to pay their bills, but surely everyone here could have found something more dignified. Perhaps porn or selling autographs at a fifth-rate convention? Really anything would have been better than Black Site.

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Vicious

  • Title: Vicious
  • IMDb: link

Vicious DVD reviewRecently released on home video, Vicious is nearly unwatchable. The film, if it can be called that, answers the question of what a TBS attempt to recreate a Cinemax After Dark movie might look like. Written and directed by Jason Rosenblatt, Vicious stars Angela Nordeng as law student Belle White who pays her bills by stripping under the stage name of Roxy. The film primarily focuses on a pair of customers who frighten Belle, one overtly by stalking her, and the other passive-aggressively by consistently odd behavior hoping to convince Roxy to quit the business.

The film is presented as a thriller of our protagonist falling into despair and fighting back. The result is far less interesting. Troubled by low production cost, inconsistent cinematography, questionable acting and dialogue, and a meandering plot, Vicious is a mess. For a thriller, it’s far from thrilling. For a film about strippers, it’s far from titillating. For a drama, it’s far from dramatic. Because the film is hyper-serious about its content, this dog of movie can’t even make it into the realm of cheesy fun. About the only thing the film is good for is a cure for insomnia.

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Why Joker is the Most Overrated Movie of the Year

  • Title: Joker
  • IMDb: link

Joker movie reviewAlthough it has been phenomenally successful at the box office, writer/director Todd Phillips‘ film focused on the origins of the most famous Bat-villain has divided critics. Forgetting for a moment that attempting to rationalize and explain one of the most inexplicable characters ever created is a terrible, terrible idea doomed to failure, Phillips’ choices over the course of Joker leave much to be desired.

Stealing its plot from two different Martin Scorsese films (Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy) and adding a layer of DC Comics on top which acts more of a fuck you to fans than celebration of the character (purposely making claims that fly in the face of 80 years of comic writing), Phillips offers a script to explain the creation of the Joker. The movie isn’t a descent into madness, our lead character is already far gone by the time we meet him. Instead, Joker examines how a shitbag like our protagonist became the most famous villain in Gotham. And, in one of the film’s most troubling aspects, excuse that behavior by re-purposing the blame of the Joker’s actions on society itself. The Joker doesn’t kill people, society kills people.

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